For reasons unknown to me, the hold music for the factory I (and my entire family) used to work at was Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You.” I mean… it was a fish factory. I suppose, if you’re working in a fish factory, it feels good for someone to call to say they love you…
It was like that for years. I would pick up the phone, call my mother, slap on my sunglasses and sway exaggeratedly back and forth. My brother would walk into the room, see me, and say, “Ask Mom to bring home some orange juice.”
The coolest one I heard, unexpectedly, was when I called Unemployment Insurance. We often got laid off at the factory for a couple of months, and so collected UI, and it was a number I’d called often and was put on hold often. Once, and only once, the hold music was changed, and I have to wonder if it was someone playing a joke (it was December, for those of you wondering if it was around April Fool’s Day). On that one day, I was amused and surprised to hear, instead of a random classical piece: Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy”.
I have to props my bank for their hold music selection last time I was listening to it: “Can’t Hurry Love”, “Anticipation”, and “Keep Me Hangin’ On” (hmm, what’s the real title of that one?..) If you’re going to make people sit around waiting for you, at least you should be upfront about the fact that they’re having to wait and they probably don’t like it! Kept me in a good mood, plus the volume and sound quality were decent and I could sing along.
The school I work at normally has some pupil’s music as the on hold music (the jazz quartet is very good) which most people seem to enjoy. Anyway, one of our IT technicians left just before the summer holidays and as a leaving present he changed it to Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s out for Summer’ :D. It made for an interesting conversation when a reporter phoned up the headmaster, from the report in the paper it wetn something like this:
Reporter: That’s some interesting on hold music you’ve got
Head: Yeah, it’s some of the pupil’s work.
R: Really? Are you sure?
H: Yes, they are very good.
R: It’s Alice Cooper, I’d be surprised if he was enroled at _________ High School!
H: Haha, it must be one of the techs having a joke.
When I was working we had one supplier that had the Beatles “Abby Road” for their hold music. That was just great. It put me in a good mood, and I didn’t really mind being on hold either.
I used to work with a company that had awesome hold music. Sometimes you’d call and it would be cheesy eighties. Sometimes it’d be oldies. You never knew! But it would usually be listenable, and it didn’t repeat. I once complimented the receptionist on the hold music and she told me the VP of the company personally selected it all and took a lot of pride in having a great variety.
I wish everyone would do that. Especially my own company.
I controlled the music-on-hold system for an entire city! Well, actually it was the government offices of a small town, and “control” meant the radio that provided the music on hold was in a closet in my office, where the phone system switches were located.
I’m a bleeding heart liberal. The town manager was a paleoconservative Republican. I’d tune the music-on-hold radio to a local NPR station. He’d turn it to a right-wing AM talk station. Occasionally, though, I’d turn it to a local college so-indie-it-hurts-alternative-rock station, or an all-Spanish Norteno station for a few hours. Imagine calling the town hall of this small, upper-middle-class community, being placed on hold, and hearing “AY AY AY (oompah oompah oompah oompah) HOOWAH HOOWAH HOOWAH (oompah oompah oompah oompah) CERVEZA FRONTIERA DENTISTA COJONES Y LA MIGRA (waaah waaah waaaah) DOLOR LA CABESA CORAZON ENCHILADA Y CABRON (waaah waaah waaaah) (oompah oompah oompah oompah)”
At my work, we have some nameless music tune that I’ve heard only once before, as between segments music on NPR. It repeats after about 2 minutes. And, working in a call center where I have to call other–often busy–departments, I hear that music a lot.
If I ever find out who chooses the hold music, I’m going to smack them. Really really.
Even worse, I hear that, after Thanksgiving, they’re gonna change to Christmas music. Shoot me. Shoot me now.
